Church? In the pool?

Recently our church was having a new floor put down and obviously when a new floor is going down, what do you for the church service?  Do you hold it in the downstairs room?  Or do you go and have a crazy fun church at the pool?  Well, I know which option I would choose, and apparently my church felt the same way!  I think I’ve found my home!

I was able to bring the youngest kids from the home, much to the disappointment of all the other boys!

“All look at the camera”, the day got off to a flying start discipline-wise.

Leandro, Samuel and Erlan, very excited about the whole day!

Praise time

Erlan and Leandro

In the church they attend, they don’t have a kids praise time, so it was so nice to see them praising God singing kids’ songs.

Getting ready for the pool.

I covered them from head to foot in sun-cream, after a previous experience involving a distinct lack of sun-cream and presence of very sore sunburn for the boys!  However, after spending 10 minutes holding them down to put it on, we went to the pool to discover… it had a roof.  Oh well.  At least they were moisturised.

The water may have been icy cold, but we sure had a lot of fun!

SLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDES!!

Samuel didn’t really understand the concept of the slides so well..

I blended right in.

Loving the pool church!

They were definitely tired out after the day!

We had a great day and the kids loved it, the only down side is that now all the boys in the home think that the pool IS my church and want to come with me every Sunday!

iFeliz Día de la Mamá! Take 2

So now that you’re all suitably up to date as regards how the boys spent their Mothers’ Day, I think it’s my turn.

I realise I haven’t posted much about my Bolivian family, really doing a disservice to the openness and love they have showed me whilst I have lived with them here.

I have been living with the Flores family now since November, and they truly have been a blessing to my life here in Bolivia.  They have opened their home and their hearts to me and have really been there for me, and helped me to feel so at home.  We laugh together so much and have such a good time, and although there have been the sad times too, their love and concern for me has always been there.

The whole family together at Christmas time – (l-r) Coco, Jorge, Mauge and Ana

Jorge and Mauge – the Bolivian Paul and Heather?  They come pretty close.

So, when Mothers’ Day came around we had a big dinner party in the Flores household for Mauge’s family…

Cooking up a storm in the kitchen with Mauge and her Aunt Lucy, who always shouts me for not combing my hair.  Once she even gave me one as a present.  She’s fighting a losing battle…

The whole family together.

We had our meal on Thursday night, Mothers’ Day, and then on Saturday, Mauge and I, along with Savannah and her Bolivian mum, Angélica, went to a restaurant up in the mountains which overlooked the city, to celebrate.

The view of the city from our table

Savannah and Angélica

With my mamita bolivianita Mauge.

Mauge with her ‘gringuito’ children

Happy Families

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY MAUGE!!

iFeliz Día de la Mamá! Take 1

Last Thursday , the 27th, was Mothers’ Day here in Bolivia.  And it’s a big deal.  There was a lot going on, so instead of boring you all with my words, here are some photos:

In the home, we started making cards for their mums who came to visit them on Friday.  They were really excited about seeing their mums and out a lot of effort into their cards, I was really impressed that 15 boys would be so committed to cutting out hearts, but they certainly love their mums!

Getting started on their cards..

Fernando

It was really great to see them working together to make these cards, as you probably all know, to get a group of boys to share and work together can be quite challenging at times, a fact of which I was blissfully unaware until Bolivia taught me how it was!

Alex, with his finished project!

Erlan, with his card that he made with his older brothers.

Fernando and his creation.

Josué (l) and Alex (r) with their collaboration.

The cards from the little ones to their mums.

Then the next day, it was the older boys’ turn

Samuel and his dolphin-themed Mothers’ Day card.  It was either that or Spiderman, so I think he made the right choice.

Juan Daniel, Fernando’s older brother.

The younger boys from the home had a Mothers’ Day programme at their school, in which each class did a traditional dance from Bolivia, readings and songs.  So, since their mums obviously weren’t there, guess who got to play mum for the day?  Good ol’ Tío Mateo.  On Thursday morning I arrived at their school to help them get ready for their dances, pay for their costumes and get stared at by 90% of the mums who were there.

The crowd getting excited to see their ‘hijitos’ performing for them.

Because the boys’ school in out in the countryside, the women there are ‘cholitas’, the traditionally dressed women of Cochabamba.  They wear their hair in plaits, flowery blouses, skirts and big white hats.  As I discovered that day, they can also be extremely violent.  At this Mothers’ Day, there was no ‘excuse me’, ‘do you think I could just get in there in front of you for a second’, it was more like I just fell sideways as they elbowed me out of their way to get to the front to see their kids.  And you may be fooled into thinking, as I was, ‘but they’re all small, I can stand at the back and still see over the top.’  But when those hats are on, they gain about 5 feet in height once they look up.  I was not their biggest fan that day, let’s just say!

Erlan, ready to dance the ‘Queca’

Josué was also supposed to dance something, but I didn’t find out what exactly, as he thought it would be for the best to play fight in his costume, and ripped it, maybe quite badly.  When his teacher brought him to me to inform me that he would now not be dancing because of his behaviour, I tried to joke it off with ‘those boys, so crazy!’  She did not agree, and I had to pay for the repair of the costume while Josué cried, holding my legs, and the cholita mums all stared at me with judging eyes.  It was a low point of the day for me.

But luckily Erlan got to do his dance…

When you are looking for him in these pictures, he’s not hard to spot, just look for the tiniest boy!

Piggy in the middle

With his little cholita wife

And again, with that cheeky grin.

Obviously I might be a little bit biased when I said Erlan’s dance was def the best, but the other classes put so much effort into the whole day, and their costumes were pretty impressive:

The nursery of the school

This would have been Josué’s dance.  But alas…

One of the older classes

The oldest class.  They had some craaaazy cool costumes.

Throughout the morning I kept seeing kids from the youngest class walking around like this:

Just covered in balloons.  From head to feet.

I was suitably confused as to why they were dressed like that until all the dances began…

…and out they ran.  It was their costume.  Something about that fact that ALL the other children had costumes that had been hired and were dancing some sort of “choreographed” dance, whereas this class were wearing normal clothes with balloons stuck all over them, while jumping up and down to a song, made me think that maybe their teacher hadn’t prepared so well for her class.

But apart from the little boy who cried the whole time because he definitely appeared to have a fear of balloons, they all loved it!

With Samuel and Fernando.  I would like to point out that I did not beat them into having this photo taken, as much as they try to give that appearance.

With Samuel and Josué.  Maybe the night before I stayed up very late, hence my tired, tired eyes.  Again, there was no beating.

Check back soon for more Mothers’ Day fun….